Whisked corporators vote in LC polls and vanish again

There was a realignment of respective first preference votes this morning among reports that the two Sena candidates Sudhir Joshi and Kanhaiyalal Gidwani could eat into each other’s positions. As a result, sources, said Joshi was allotted nine additional first preference votes to make his position absolutely foolproof.

Congress and Samajwadi Party members who had been whisked away to safety over the weekend were driven straight to the home of the leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra Legislative Council Chhagan Bhujbal where a head count was taken to ensure that all of Hussain Dalwai’s first preference voters were in place.

According to sources, the Congress-SP figures added up and all of Dalwai’s voters cast their votes before 10 am this morning and were not seen on the premises of BMC thereafter.

The rival camp, however, claimed that there was a possibility of cross voting in favour of the Sena from the Congress ranks. This was countered by the opposite camp with the information that unhappy with the choice of at least one candidate, Sena corporators were willing to be influenced by the Congress to vote in favour of the candidate supported by them.

According to the Sena corporators, the party has made all arrangements to ensure that both their candidates Sudhir Joshi and Kanhaiyalal Gidwani make it to the Council. Sena leader in the BMC Nandu Satam claimed that Joshi’s winning was guaranteed in the first round as the party has made provisions to ensure more than the required number of votes for him.

He added that Congress corporators who were unhappy with the party’s functioning would also vote for the Sena candidates.“And with the Mayor-in-Council and the ward committees to come, Congress corporators who are hopeful of some important portfolio, will also vote for our candidates,” he claimed. The required number to be declared winner in the first round is 76 votes. The Sena has 101 corporators and is hopeful of getting 29 Bharatiya Janata Party and eight additional votes from other parties.

Gidwani said that he had made arrangements to garner the required votes. “I had written to all the 221 corporators along with my bio-data appealing them to vote for me,” said Gidwani and added that he would get the 15 votes from the opposition parties. The SP candidate Hussain Dalwai needs six additional votes apart from the votes of the Congress and the SP corporators. A total of 225 corporators exercised their vote while one vote was left uncast following the death of senior Janata Dal corporator Sohan Singh Kohli two months ago. Polling was carried out in the BMC headquarters and majority of the corporators exercised their votes in the first two hours and a half hours, informed polling agents. Only seven corporators voted between 12 noon and 4 pm. Yakub Memon of the Samajwadi Party had to be brought on a stretcher as he is recuperating following a lathi charge in which he was badly injured.

The Collector of Mumbai City, Vijay Kumar Gautam, was present to ensure smooth execution of the process. However, there were minor complaints from Sena polling agents against the opposition members. Ram Mhatre complained that the Congress was trying to find out who voted for whom by removing the black slips pasted on the serial number of the ballot paper. But this was taken care of and the Collector stationed an officer to keep a watch. Sena also raised objection when a Samajwadi Party corporator was being told how to vote by one of her party corporators as she could not make sense of the ballot paper.